The multiracial category and the maintenance of the racial hierarchy/A categoria multirracial e a manutenção da hierarquia racial

In the past decade or so in the US, there has been a lot of controversy over the issue of multiracial Americans having the opportunity to check more than one box on American census forms and also identifying themselves as multiracial. For many, the opportunity to “check all that apply” symbolized a much needed change in an American racial ideology that continued to adhere to the infamous “one drop rule”. My question is, have racial ideologies or the racial hierarchy really changed simply because more people call themselves “mixed”, “biracial” or “multiracial”? Through my analysis of the Brazilian situation, I can say with confidence that racism and the racial hierarchy can indeed co-exist with fluid racial terminology.

In Brazil, citizens and social scientists have repeatedly argued that through miscegenation, the country has achieved a racial democracy which proves that the country is morally superior to its northern neighbor. People have also argued that people of mixed racial ancestry are more successful and accepted than their ancestors whose features are more visibly African. Yet when one analyzes social statistics it becomes clear that Brazil’s so-called pardos and mulattos of mixed racial ancestry are by and large in the same social situation as their darker, supposedly more African looking brothers and sisters while those accepted as white sit atop the racial hierarchy in every important facet of Brazilian society. So my question is, if the Brazilian experience with racial mixture and multiracial categories has produced a similar racial hierarchy, what real value does having multiracial identity or census categories have? As Jean Paul Sartre once wrote, “the very idea of race implies that of inequality” since the category was created to justify the domination of one group over others.

The introduction of a multiracial category is not a solution to a racial hierarchy that remains the same. A multiracial category simply complicates the issue even more because New World black people are already multiracial. In my experiences with many biracial, black/white people, I have been told that their white mothers have encouraged them not to date or marry blacks and to tell people that their mother is white when they experience racism. According to professor Rainier Spencer, it is also true that many multiracial people vehemently reject the idea that African-Americans could also identify themselves as multiracial. Why? Does it threaten the perceived advantages of being multiracial? Does it give the multiracial person special privileges over “plain” black people?

As phenotype conflicts remain an issue amongst African-Americans, the introduction of multiracial identity does nothing but increase an already overvaluation of whiteness. Racism, as a system, is based on the non-European ancestry of people who are victimized by it. And while a multiracial person may be of partial European ancestry, partial European ancestry does not necessarily equal whiteness. Thus, as Muniz Sodré explains, if we are to continue to speak in racial terms, “there is only white and the others” for “race is always the other”.

One Response to “The multiracial category and the maintenance of the racial hierarchy/A categoria multirracial e a manutenção da hierarquia racial”

Good points and the quote by Sarte was right on. It is so funny that the only time “we are all Americans” is when someone is trying to rally up some patriotism. After that, you must find some category to put yourself in. People can’t even tell a story about someone else without giving you the color canvas on which it rests on…meaning, “A black woman was riding a bike down the street…” Color may have nothing to do with the action in the story, but it’s most certainly always included no matter what. “Even my condition has been conditioned”